I've been flying for over 35 years and my experience is that Super Tigre engines are a problem. The engine itself is a power and fantastic engine but their carbs suck. You can tune them perfectly at low end and at top end. When you throttle up on take off, they'll flood out at mid range and quit. One guy in our club had a ST 90 and it kept doing that. We put on a Tower Hobbies 65 carb and the engine ran fine. Lots of power. And that ugly muffler... what an unsightly thing. They have the ugliest muffler in the r/c world.

Every time I see somebody flying a ST, I'll ask them how the get them to work. They'll explain it to me and then they'll take off and the engine will quit. I've seen many guys lose their airplanes because of the quitting problem. I belong to two clubs with a total of over 200 members and NOBODY uses a ST engine.... except the guy with the 90 with the TH carb... and that runs great. A lot of guys tried them but, after a while, they go on to a different engine.

Another buddy of mine bought a ST 46 and was having the quitting on take off problem. I told him it was the carb's fault so he went out and bought a Perry carb. That helped a little but a in the end, his engine quit and crashed into a cliff side... we flew over the ocean with a cliff. You don't see many people using Perry carbs anymore.

For the price, the old Tower Hobbies .46 ran great with lots of power. But the don't sell them any more. I understand the the TH engines were made at the same factory that makes the ASP and Magnum engine. I'm going to buy the ASP 46 as I've been hearing good things about that engine. They are cheap.. around $61 from Hoppypartz.com. Free shipping. Don't know where I'll get the spare parts from. But it seems that getting replacement parts is a problem with many engines.

The best engine is the OS 46 but they cost an arm and a leg. The best compromise is the Thunder Tiger 46.. but their prices have gone up too.

If you're learning to fly, keep it cheap because you'll be crashing and sadly, engines are usually the stuff that gets damaged. Don't know why they put it up front. They should all be pusher engines.. ha, ha.

Other than that, don't use too big a prop, keep your fuel can tightly capped when in storage, use a good glow plug (like an OS #8.. they are expensive but in the long run they'll outlast all the other plugs... NO U.S. plugs are good.. cheap but bad), put a fuel filter on to keep the garbage out of your carb (one speck of dirt can change your setting and that can result in a dead stick). Watch they other fliers and determine who has the least problems with their engines. Then ask that person to tune your engine. The last thing you want to do is to ask and idiot to tune your engine. Use the pinch method. At full throttle, pinch the fuel line. The rpm's should increase slightly before slowing down. If it immediately slows down, it's to lean. Same with the low end. At idle, pinch the line. If it immediately slows, it's too lean. Ideally, when you pinch the fuel line at idle, the engine should increase in rpm for about four seconds and then slow down.